Amongst a scene that pretty much trades in enigmatic, auteur-like figures, UK IDM duo Autechre are easily one of contemporary electronic music’s most speculated-about duos, the sense of mystery surrounding them being significantly heightened by the pair’s refusal to go into detail about their creative processes in interviews. Alongside the likes of fellow (sometime) Warp labelmates The Black Dog / Plaid, Aphex Twin and Oval, Autechre’s Sean Booth and Rob Brown were in many ways responsible for setting the template that so-called ‘IDM’ or ‘Intelligent Dance Music’ would follow for the ensuing decade, thanks to seminal albums such as ‘Tri Repetae’ and ‘Chiastic Slide.’ More recent Autechre albums such as the ultra-stark ‘Confield’ and ensuing ‘Draft 7.30’ have noticeably seen Booth and Brown’s productions moving out towards more austere yet increasingly complex digital landscapes, with traces of recognisable melody becoming much less apparent and the end results closer to being abstract sound / textural art, more than anything else. While sections of ‘Confield’ may have called to mind the cracking sounds emanating from a giant, slowly cooling furnace however, 2005’s most recent ‘Untilted’ album saw hints of the more melodic Autechre of old subtly trickling back into the mix, a return to comparative ‘warmth’ that continues in earnest on this latest ninth album ‘Quaristice.’

From the very outset, even the tracklisting format here hints that Autechre have subtly shifted their approach sideways, with the duo’s previous penchant for lengthy track times exchanged here for a healthy 20 tracks over 73 minutes of running length. Opening track ‘Altibzz’ is certainly indicative of this general return to more tangibly ‘human’ atmospheres, nicely setting the scene with a slow-motion wash of oddly orchestral-sounding drones and melodic pads that’s easily one of the most immediately accessible tracks Autechre have released in a long time. ‘The PLC’ meanwhile sees the duo’s trademark, spidery, asymmetical breakbeats making an early reappearance, amidst sinister Dario Argento-esque minor keys and aquatic-sounding background textures, but in this case there’s a comparative regularity to the rhythms that anchors proceedings, keeping them in a place that’s considerably ‘upfront’, compared to Confield’s abstracted digressions. The Caribbean steel drum-esque melodic elements that surface towards the track’s second half amidst what sounds like eerie treated sampled chatter also suggest the action of human hands actively working in realtime, a vibe that hasn’t really been present in Autechre’s works for some time prior to this.

It’s a characteristic also noticeably present amidst the eerie contorted robo-funk of ‘IO’, which suggests a malfunctioning ‘Speak N Spell’ machine battling it out against one of John Carpenter’s synthetic movie scores, and the spooky 8-bit synthetic bleeps and ricocheting bass pads that pepper low-slung highlight ‘Perlence.’ The breathtakingly delicate ‘Simmm’ easily approaches one of the more ‘earthy’ tracks Autechre have turned their hands to so far, with the opening gentle melodic strokes of what sounds like heavily treated acoustic guitar slowly colliding with an intersecting web of gamelan-esque multitimbral polyrhythms and subtly ebbing pads, the entire structure somehow remaining intact as percussion weaves in and out of the mix. By taking a slight left turn in their creative approach, Autechre have succeeded in fashioning a collection that’s easily one of their most ‘satisfying’ in recent years, and compared to predecessors ‘Confield’ and ‘Draft 7.30’, a casual listener has to work considerably less to enjoy ‘Quaristice’ from the outset. Like all of the duo’s previous works however, it’s through repeated listening that the real rewards lying in wait here are discovered.

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